Shortly after it invaded Ukraine, Russia was slapped with international sanctions aimed at crippling its military industrial complex. However, three years later, this ‘sanction regime’ appears to have failed amid reports that Moscow is producing 100 Shahed kamikaze drones every day.
Russia has intensified its aerial strikes against Ukrainian cities in the last week, mercilessly pummelling them with lethal drones and missiles. The strikes on May 24 and 25 were described as the biggest of their kind since the war began in February 2022, with Ukrainian air defenses struggling to cope.
According to recent reports, the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces struggled to intercept upgraded Russian ballistic missiles that follow quasi-ballistic trajectories and are armed with radar decoys.
The Ukrainian air defense network found itself overwhelmed, and it is only expected to get worse as Russia further scales production of its drones and missiles.
A report published in The Economist on May 25 claimed that Russia is producing more Shahed drones. The current production capacity is about 100 Shaheds per day, which is about four to five times their estimated daily production rate in late 2024.
The report, citing unidentified sources in Ukrainian Military Intelligence, noted that Russia intends to boost production to 500 drones per day by an undisclosed future date. In addition, the Kremlin is expected to have a stockpile of about 500 ballistic missiles.
“Last year, the Kremlin was producing around 300 Shahed drones a month; the same number now rolls out in under three days. Ukrainian military intelligence says it has documents that suggest that Russia plans to increase its drone production to 500 a day, suggesting that attack swarms of 1,000 could become a reality,” the report stated.
On May 25, the Kremlin launched a record-breaking 298 Shahed drones against Ukraine.
The report, which was also included in an assessment published by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) on May 26, has raised questions about the effectiveness of sanctions imposed on Russia.
While Ukrainian experts dismiss the prospect of producing 500 drones a day as an exaggeration and bluster, they still admit that production will significantly increase.
On May 26, Ukrainian Air Force Spokesperson Colonel Yuriy Ihnat said Russia is also producing more decoy drones, along with the Shaheds. Additionally, the Russian military has resumed employing Kh-22 cruise missiles in their strike packages after temporarily reducing their use.
If this assessment is correct, it likely indicates that ramping up production has arrested a previous shortfall of the lethal Kh-22 cruise missiles.
If the scaling of production was not enough, Russia has also given six upgrades to newly produced Shahed drones, according to the report. Ukrainian engineers who have examined drone debris informed the publication that Russia is working on navigation systems on the drone.
The Ukrainian engineers claimed that since the latest Shahed variants no longer rely on GPS, they have become impervious to Ukraine’s electronic warfare capabilities. Instead, they have found a way to leverage AI and Ukraine’s mobile internet networks.
The Ukrainian experts reportedly found a message inside one of the disassembled drones, stating that the drone was using a new control algorithm. The message was probably left by a Russian engineer sympathetic to Ukraine and claimed that these drones were guided by Telegram bots that provide human operators with real-time flight data and video feeds.
Ukrainian air defense forces Colonel Denys Smazhnyi told The Economist that Russian drones are now routinely circling Ukraine’s mobile fire teams that try to hit them. To escape detection, the drones initially fly at low altitudes before abruptly rising to 2,000 to 2,500 meters as they approach cities, where they are out of range of small-caliber weaponry. Thus, Ukraine is now depending more and more on interceptor drones, F-16s, and helicopters to hunt these drones down.
All these advancements have happened under a strict international sanctions regime that wanted to cripple Russian military industry complex and curtail its war fighting capacity.
How Is Russia Scaling Production?
Russia began importing Shahed drones from Iran after the invasion was launched in 2022. However, by early 2023, Moscow and Tehran signed a US$1.75 billion deal to establish domestic production of these drones in Russia. The sanctioned country has been scaling production since.
A CNN report published on December 27, 2024, estimated that the Shahed production facility in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in the Republic of Tatarstan produced 5,760 drones between January and September 2024. This was more than double the number of drones produced at the facility in 2023, showcasing the rapid expansion of production capacity.
The report, citing leaked documents from the facility, confirmed that Alabuga is Russia’s main production site for Shahed drones and has already met its commitment to deliver 6,000 drones to the Russian military by September 2025.
In March this year, Anatolii Khrapchynskyi, an aviation expert, former Ukrainian Air Force officer, and now deputy director at a military-tech company, explained that when Russia obtains new technology, whether from Iran, China, or by seizing drones from Ukraine, it not only copies it but also scales mass manufacturing.
Russia adopts a Soviet-era paradigm, where state-controlled businesses, now primarily owned by oligarchs, oversee mass production. This top-down strategy enables Moscow to swiftly expand manufacturing.
However, the significant increase in the production of Shahed drones has also been attributed to its close ally, China. The head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service, Oleh Ivashchenko, said in an interview on May 26 that he could confirm China is supplying critical materials and equipment to about 20 Russian military factories.
“There is information that China supplies tooling machines, special chemical products, gunpowder, and components specifically to defence manufacturing industries,” he said.
This accusation comes a month after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Chinese individuals of aiding in the development of drones and made his first public claim that China is providing supplies and gunpowder to Russia’s military producers.
This association has been contributing to Russia’s drone production for a while. Ukraine alleged last year that Russia had constructed a new rail station near the Alabuga Special Economic Zone (SEZ), establishing a direct rail link between Russia and China, which could be used to transport essential components for drone production.
The CNN report from December 2024 also claimed 34 Chinese businesses “cooperated” with the Alabuga plant between September 2023 and June 2024, signing contracts for over 700 million yuan, or more than 8 billion rubles (US$96 million). These contracts included essential components, raw materials, and machinery for the manufacturing of drones.
China has categorically dismissed all these accusations as groundless.
Another way Russia has managed to scale weapons production is by acquiring components required to build drones and missiles from third parties. A previous Euro News report stated that Russia has a sizable “agent network” worldwide, which facilitates the transfer of necessary components through third-party or intermediate nations, circumventing the sanctions.
Russia has also exploited the fact that the majority of the foreign components are dual-use parts used in weapons and home appliances, which means that they are not impossible to obtain. However, Ukrainian authorities had earlier noted that while Russia is still able to obtain components from China, the European Union, and the US, it pays several times more for them.
Additionally, the Russians are known for their ability to adapt. The Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise (KSRIFE) discovered a different set of components in missiles and drones used for the same purpose, thus demonstrating resilience.
While Ukrainian authorities earlier stated that paying extra for the components and using different components meant that sanctions were working by breaking the regular supply chain. However, as a large number of drones and missiles now pound Ukrainian cities, that assessment might have shifted.
Without directly referring to the damning report, Ukrainian lawmaker and media person, Kira Rudik wrote on X: “The fact that russia can manufacture drones and missiles 3 years into the full scale war – proves the failure of sanctions execution.”
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